and delivering a heap of advice and guidance for future progress in using the room…..

My only really sniffy complaints about the whole project are the choice of "cost effective" coarse hessian / sack cloth as a covering material (except the cloud, for which i donated enough Cara of suitable colour to do a proper job) .and some of the misinterpreted application of misinformation about paper facings and positioning…. the internet has a lot to answer for sometimes…. ss

Acoustically it works fine, but it is FUGLY , i mean, seriously, seriously horrid, proper nasty, …… and it's not fire rated….. it is also much MUCH harder to work with to achieve my usual high standards of fit and finish on panels……

it tears easily, it does not stretch a lot in 2 dimensions, is much harder to tension, it punctures easily on sharp corners…. and it frays easily…. so staple fixings need to be frequent and hammered home to be sure….

and…. it's not THAT much cheaper ….. especially when you realise, that for a single 1240x640x150 panel, you have to use about 1.6metres of hessian for a "front & sides only" covering…. and only 950mm of Cara,

the difference is due to the fabric roll width….. Cara comes in a 1.7m wide roll, so can accommodate the entire panel length across the width of the fabric….. the Sackcloth is only about a metre or so wide…. so you must use the length of the panel, along the length of the fabric….

Total time to complete…. 4 days . + 1 day travel (to be fair, it's nigh on 300 miles each way )

to keep costs down , Stayed with "helmut" and family , charming hosts, and very glad i could bring this project to completion and allow the man to get on and actually make music in it instead of stressing about how the hell he'd get it finished….

A huge thank you goes to SSG for all the hard work, dedication, patience and knowledge he showed to complete my studio. It was amazing that he was able to finish it all in less than a week. His professional knowledge of studio builds, acoustics and anything audio related was astounding and I am truly grateful to him indeed, plus he is an awesome lad to boot !!!

I went into the room on the night that it was finished and thought 'OMG i have a studio !'. Considering it was 5 years ago that i started this, that was a pretty profound moment for me.

In all honesty i don't think I would have ever been able to finish it without him and certainly not anywhere near to the same level, both acoustically and fit and finish wise.

The Cara fabric is a real improvement over the potato sack hessian. Once SSG fit the Cara he kindly donated to me i realised it would have been great to use it for everything - and you can choose your colours instead of only potato sack brown and the small price difference is more than worth it. I should have listened to James who recommended it earlier on but i miscalculated how much i would have needed and hence the price.

Of course you need to know how to fit fabric to make it look really good - something i was not able to do myself ( unlike SSG ) so please keep that in mind when looking at the pictures that i get up in the coming weeks.

I only wish i had contacted him before i had even spoke to the planner about building the room. Having a really good professional involved from the start would have avoided a lot of mistakes, stress and a huge amount of time. Definitely something to think about for the future.

Helmutcrab wrote:The Cara fabric is a real improvement over the potato sack hessian. Once SSG fit the Cara he kindly donated to me i realised it would have been great to use it for everything - and you can choose your colours instead of only potato sack brown and the small price difference is more than worth it. I should have listened to James who recommended it earlier on but i miscalculated how much i would have needed and hence the price.

Of course you need to know how to fit fabric to make it look really good - something i was not able to do myself ( unlike SSG ) so please keep that in mind when looking at the pictures that i get up in the coming weeks.

Cara is so easy to work with even I can make it look acceptable!

It is also worth checking the Ebay price rather than the RRP as it makes a big difference. Like you, I was thinking of using coloured hessian for my build but it was hardly any cheaper than the Ebay price for Cara.

Sorry, i was unable to take photos of the room or use it at all due to illness/disability which is a real shame. I have moved now. I will try to get some photos up of the panels in my new room once I've had them put up. i won't be using anywhere near as many panels though as that room was almost anechoic ! ( except for diffusion panels Max made )